Garments which provide thermal insulation to the wearer during a variety of aquatic sports or activities are well known. Two broad types of aquatic garments are extensively used, namely, wet suits and dry suits. As the name implies, wet suits usually permit the entry of some water between the garment and the user's body. Wet suits greatly restrict the circulation of the water, however, so that the water inside the suit warms up as a result of contact with the user's body. It is the combination of the thermal insulation of the wet suit material and the thermal insulation of the warmed water inside the suit which is effective in thermally protecting the wearer of the suit against cold water.
Dry suits are formed with seals which seal the suit against the user's skin at the ankles, wrists and neck of the user. Dry suits are constructed one of two ways. A single layer of material is simply sealed to the user, for example, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,731,319, or two spaced apart layers are employed which form a pneumatic bladder that can be inflated to surround the user with a layer of air. Dry suits, for activities such as board or wind surfing, are often formed as single layer dry suits, while two layer dry suits are more typically used for scuba diving. The trapped air in a dry suit, together with the thermal insulating properties of the layer or layers of material, provide the necessary thermal insulation for the dry suit.
Both wet suits and dry suits typically are formed from foamed plastic or rubber sheet material, most typically foamed neoprene. This rubber sheet material usually will have a fabric layer, often a nylon fabric, bonded to one or both sides. The inside of a wet suit, for example, will usually have nylon fabric bonded to the foamed neoprene to provide additional strength and to provide a more comfortable surface against the wearer's skin.
Wet suits may be constructed as full length, single piece suits or two-piece suits with separate tops and bottoms. Some suits have shortened arms and legs, and in warmer water, the user may wear just the wet suit top.
Wet and dry suits are formed from a plurality of pieces of rubber sheeting that are glued, taped and sewn together to form a garment which closely conforms to the user's body. They inherently, therefore, have a certain number of seams between pieces which seams tend to reduce the elasticity and flexibility of the suit.
In many aquatic activities, and particularly aquatic sports, it is highly desirable to have the thermal insulating garment be as stretchable and flexible as possible, while still maintaining the necessary thermal insulating properties. For board surfing, for example, the surfer must paddle the surf board out through the waves, which requires considerable upper body, and particularly arm, motion. Scuba diving requires considerable leg motion, and, to a lesser degree, arm motion. Similarly, wind surfing demands flexibility of both the arms and legs for manipulation of the boom, mast and board.
As the need for thermal insulation increases, the thickness of the suit material must be correspondingly increased. Thus, the suits which are employed for cold water aquatic activities often are constructed with a neoprene thickness (for example, up to five millimeters thick) that substantially inhibits the stretching and bending which would normally be required to participate in the activity. Prior wet and dry suits, therefore, whether for diving or for surfing, have tended to be undesirably inelastic and stiff.
One approach to the problem of lack of elasticity and flexibility has been to form the wet and dry suits with selected areas of increased elasticity and flexibility. This heretofore has been accomplished by joining areas of relatively thin suit material to sheets of relatively thicker suit material. Thus, the areas of the suit which should be most flexible or stretch the most, for example, the upper arms, shoulders, waist and thighs are formed of patches or areas of relatively thin suit material. This approach is shown in FIG. 1 of the drawing.
In FIG. 1 a sheet 21 of neoprene foam has nylon fabric layers 22 and 23 bonded to the inner and outer surfaces of the foam. Mounted in abutting relation to sheet 21 is a second sheet 24 of foamed neoprene having layers 26 and 27 of nylon bonded to the inner and outer surfaces. As will be seen, sheet 24 has significantly less thickness than sheet 21. The two neoprene pieces are secured together by gluing (adhesive or solvent gluing) at interface 28, and a seam reinforcing tape 29 is glued to both sheets on an inside of the assembly. As also will be seen, the disparity in sheet thickness forces a discontinuity or step 31 at the seam. Discontinuity 31 affects the comfort, elasticity and flexibility of the suit.
A cold water wet or dry suit suitable for wind surfing or board surfing typically has a fabric thickness of about 3 to 3 1/2 millimeters of neoprene foam material. In order to enhance the elasticity and flexibility of the suit, areas of 1 millimeter foam material can be used in the armpits and areas of 2 millimeter foam material used at the elbows and waist. As the area of such patches of reduced thickness foam is increased, however, there is a noticeable reduction in the thermal insulation properties of the suit. Accordingly, these stretch areas must be somewhat limited in size and located only in the critical portions of the suit. As will be appreciated, however, most aquatic activities require stretching and flexing of many areas of a user's body, and enhancing elasticity and flexibility in only a limited number of areas still does not truly solve the problem.
Another problem which occurs in connection with using areas or patches of reduced thickness foam material is that the number of seams in the suit increases in order to permit areas of differing foam thickness. Thus, seams having taped backing 29 and resulting discontinuities 31 tend to defeat the desired goal of increased suit stretching. Accordingly, in suits using a variation of the thickness of the rubber sheet material to enhance elasticity and flexibility, there is a significant loss of flexibility and stretch at the seams around the stretch areas.
In addition to the desirability of making wet and dry suits more flexible during use in an aquatic activity, the inelasticity of the thicker, more thermally insulating suits, also poses a problem when getting into and out of the suit. Even in wet suits, it is highly desirable and necessary to limit the circulation of water between the inside and the outside of the suit. Thus, in both wet and dry suits the wrists, ankles and neck all tend to be tight fitting so that cold water cannot easily enter the suit. One particularly effective way of creating a seal between the suit and the user is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,731,319. In the suit of this patent, the cuffs and collar of the suit are tapered or narrowed, and they are folded inwardly upon themselves to produce a good seal between the user's body and the suit. Bands of elastic material are also sometimes used to enhance the seals further.
When the user attempts to get in or out of a wet or dry suit, however, the narrowed legs and arms tend to make it somewhat difficult to force the feet and hands through the narrowed openings. This difficulty increases as the wet suit material becomes thicker, and it is further compounded if the user is wearing a Lycra garment under the wet suit, which often is the case. Since wet suits are usually donned and removed at locations such as beaches or moving boats, inelastic wet and dry suits can require significant and undesirable struggling and inconvenience to the user as the suit is put on and taken off.
While not significantly enhancing the elasticity of wet suits some neoprene sheets are foamed in molds having surface puckers or dimples. This surface dimpling is referred to as a "Sharkskin" surface, and it originally was devised to have the cosmetic effect of hiding surface blemishes which are sometimes apparent in smooth skinned neoprene sheets. More recently, the effect of Sharkskin puckers in enhancing suit flexibility and surface "softness" has been recognized.
Various Sharkskin dimple patterns have been used, but they include recesses or dimples having a depth less than 15 percent of the thickness of the thickness of the foamed neoprene sheet, and typically less than 10% of the sheet thickness. Accordingly, Sharkskin dimpling of foamed neoprene does not significantly effect the elasticity or stretchability of the neoprene sheet, and its effect on suit flexibility is not nearly as significant as would be desired optimally. The dimple pattern in Sharkskin also extends uniformly over the entire surface of the Sharkskin. Thus, to gradiate or tailor even the small amount of increased flexibility provided by Sharkskin in accordance with the areas that need to flex, the suit must be constructed with patches or areas of Sharkskin, with additional seams that reduce flexibility and elasticity.
Very recently wet suits have been constructed of a foamed neoprene material which is subject to a heat compression process after foaming to form grooves or recesses in the foam. Thus, the sheet of neoprene foam is placed in a heated die after foaming and squeezed to groove the foam.
The effect of this post-foaming compression technique is to crush the foam cells in the area of the grooves and increase the material density in the area of the grooves. Unfortunately, this process causes the neoprene in the area of the grooves to have significantly reduced thermal insulating properties as a result of cell crushing, and the elasticity of the sheet across the grooves also is reduced significantly.
Post-foaming, heat grooving of neoprene, therefore, does not lend itself to constructing wet or dry suits with enhanced elasticity, and it results in undesirable thermal degradation.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an aquatic garment, such as a wet suit, dry suit or the like, which has enhanced elasticity while still maintaining sufficient thermal insulation for aquatic activities in cold water.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a wet suit or dry suit which has the desired thermal insulation and yet had gradiated stretchability in selected areas.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an aquatic garment, and method for making the same, in which stretchability and flexibility both can be significantly enhanced and varied in virtually any part of the garment without reducing the thermal insulation below level which is sufficient for aquatic us of the garment.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a garment, such as a wet suit, dry suit or the like, and a method for constructing the garment, which are effective in increasing the garment elasticity without undesirably reducing the mechanical integrity of the garment.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a wet suit or dry suit, and method of making the same, which makes the suit easier for the wearer to get into and get out of.
Still a further object of the present invention is to provide a more elastic and flexible wet suit or dry suit which is durable, suitable for use in a wide range of aquatic activities, can be constructed using conventional fabricating techniques, minimizes the number of seams between adjacent garment areas, and is suitable for use with one and two-piece suits.
The garment for aquatic activities, and the method for making the garment of the present invention, have other objects and features of advantage which will become apparent from the drawing and/or are set forth in more detail in the following description of the Best Mode Of Carrying Out The Invention.